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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25194625">self realization (to make yourself real)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexicon/pseuds/Alexicon'>Alexicon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>marvel works [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Body Horror, Dreams, Gen, Identity Porn, Possibly incipient threesomes (Bucky selfcest), Recovery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:08:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>839</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25194625</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexicon/pseuds/Alexicon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn’t have dreams anymore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>marvel works [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/708405</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>self realization (to make yourself real)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/gifts">spacestationtrustfund</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Edited by the marvelous <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund">Mochi spacestationtrustfund</a>, who has kindly threatened me with a remix. I promise to read it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He didn’t have dreams anymore. He had nightmares, about sifting through shards of glass that sliced open his skin when he tried to reach for them—there would be faces reflected in the glass; Pierce, Zola, other long-dead monsters. Even with his eyes open, he could recall how they looked, thinking with pride of the thing they’d made of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t have dreams. This was something different.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first thing he noticed was the man wielding the hammer. There were sparks flashing with every ringing strike of metal on metal. The fire’s dull red glow threw the figure’s silhouette into view.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked up. He was standing on bedrock, an outcropping soaring up into the blackness above. The fire barely lit the small corner; beyond that, nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t tell what the hammer was striking—each dismal clang sent up another shower of sparks. He could see, somehow, that there was a table, upon which lay a cylinder shining orange with each new burst of light from the blows rained down upon it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It could have been a mortar; it could have been a cannon. His feet were walking towards the shape before he even realized he was moving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’re you doing?”<br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blacksmith paused, the shadow turning towards him. “I see my identity’s not important to you,” it said. The voice was familiar; it itched at the back of his mind. Then: “We’re working.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You and who else?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the wrong thing to say. He couldn’t make out a face amongst the darkness, but he could feel the smile. The blacksmith’s shadow said, “He would like you better if you remembered who he was from week to week.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah? And who’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he said, to cover up for the fear tightening around his throat. It was hot and swelling, like swallowing eggshells instead of the omelette. Like bringing the hammer down on his thumb instead of the nail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The figure laughed. “Well, you’re supposed to know that, aren’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the shadow turned, facing him full-on for the first time, and he could see—it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>, from during the war, wearing that olive drab and the sergeant’s cap with its rakish tilt; he looked clean, he looked bright—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked young.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He staggered back from the blacksmith, arms flailing—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d slipped on blood, he realized. He must have: there was blood dripping from the place where his left arm should have been, thick and dark red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blacksmith paused work on the metal arm. “You’re Bucky, of course.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” Bucky said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Although your body has walked seventy years without us in it,” the figure added.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Us?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was another loud, horrible noise, but the hammer hadn’t moved from its place beside the fire; the sound had come from the stone—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t stone, he realized. That must have been why he’d slipped. It was ice—cold, wet, and cloudy—and it was melting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, hey,” said the blacksmith, pleased. “Perfect. He must be waking up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bucky said, “No,” without thinking, and the ice split, and his own face stared back at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ready to comply,” said the Winter Soldier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bucky scrambled back frantically before his brain could even begin to catch up to his body. The Soldier turned its blank face towards him. There was no mask; the eyes were dead, still foggy from the ice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Soldat</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” snapped the blacksmith, with Bucky’s old voice. The Soldier stopped, head tilted like a bird, waiting for orders. “The arm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Bucky said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could see the lines and grooves in the metal, still glowing bright-hot from the fire, the red star dripping and molten. The Soldier lifted the arm gently, almost tenderly, its own metal fingers clicking and grinding against the edges. It—no, </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> didn’t seem half as menacing, now, Bucky thought—and he hadn’t been, had he? He’d been a weapon, not an assassin—he would do as he was told, but if he were told to do something gentle—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Soldier cradled the arm, looking down at it with that same blank expression, then advanced on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bucky scurried further back before he could stop to think, terror rising in him.  He managed to choke out, “What—who </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t been expecting a response—he wouldn’t have responded, after all—but the Soldier hesitated, as though thinking of what to say. Bucky didn’t know what he was expecting, but when the Soldier spoke, it wasn’t with the blacksmith’s familiar Brooklyn cadence, or even a solid Russian accent he’d been half hoping to hear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m Bucky Barnes,” said the Winter Soldier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bucky didn’t have a chance to react before the Soldier moved—faster than he’d thought possible, faster than he’d thought he could move—and slammed the still-burning arm onto his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pain burst across his body, snaking outward from his shoulder and up across his neck, his chest, inside him—hot, white, sharp; digging its claws into his flesh—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He woke up gasping, but at least he didn’t scream.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
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